87 Oil pressure guage issues

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Darryl VDH

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Hi Everyone. I have an issue with my 1987 GMC pickup. I changed out the motor to a ZZ6 crate motor. I am using the factory oil pressure guage which reads up to 60 psi. It is overloading the guage as the the ZZ6 puts out 60 psi at idle according to a manual guage we put on to check. Are there any factory gauges that read more that 60 psi? Is there a way to reduce the signal by half so guage reads 30 psi when actual is 60? Thanks for the help!
 

Blue Ox

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The gauges in the diesels went to 80. Different sender required too. If you're doing 60 psi cold at idle (which seems like a lot) you're probably hitting 100 at higher RPM. You may need to see if there's a 100 psi gauge in some other application.
 

Darryl VDH

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Hi Blue Ox, thanks for reply. Does anyone make a reproduction oil guage for the 6.2? I want to keep the dash looking stock and that diesel oil pressure guage sounds like it would do the trick. I see the senders online but not the guage...
 

Blue Ox

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Sorry, not that I'm aware of.
 

Charlie

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:welcome:
 

chengny

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Hi Blue Ox, thanks for reply. Does anyone make a reproduction oil guage for the 6.2? I want to keep the dash looking stock and that diesel oil pressure guage sounds like it would do the trick. I see the senders online but not the guage...

I recently bought an NOS matched 80 psi set - manufactured by Delco.


So yeah, they are out there - and as Derek suggests they were primarily used in diesel applications. But they were also OEM equipment for Corvettes and several other GM vehicles with gas engines.

Finding them takes a bit of patience and a lot of time on google/ebay. I say "them" because - as you know - you can't use an 80# sender to drive a 60# indicator. Consequently, an 80 pound gauge is necessary as well.

My engine is fairly tight and at start-up - in cold ambient conditions - the oil pressure pegs out high on a 60 # gauge. Even at operating temperature it will still read about 50#. And since I like my gauges to read in the middle of the total range, I recently bought both those parts.

Search using the following GM part numbers:

Sender P/N - 14040816, 06462137, 14039612, 10030966
Gauge P/N - 25025157

You must be registered for see images attach




There are a lot of unscrupulous people selling 60 psi senders as 80 psi - so before you buy, make sure one of the flats on the nipple is stamped like this:

You must be registered for see images attach


Just as a guide, I paid $20 for the gauge and maybe $25 for the sender, but I had no big rush and am wicked cheap so I searched for a long time for a good price.

If my remarks above sound a little off, that's because I cut & pasted my post from another thread on this forum:

https://www.gmsquarebody.com/threads/1986-silverado-oil-pressure-switch-and-sensor.18615/
 

Darryl VDH

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Hi Chengny, thanks for the info! The guage you are using looks like one of the 1980 and back pickups, do you know if one was offered for the 81-87? I am thinking the indicator is a bit different than my 87...
 

Big Chip

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@Rusty Nail did a Camaro tach with an oil pressure gauge which I assume is 80 psi. There's a thread about it I believe.
 

chengny

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Hi Chengny, thanks for the info! The guage you are using looks like one of the 1980 and back pickups, do you know if one was offered for the 81-87? I am thinking the indicator is a bit different than my 87...

Jeez Darryl, you had me second guessing myself for a while there.

I had some spare oil pressure gauges on hand that came out of 86-87 trucks. I carefully compared them with the 25025157 (80 psi gauge shown above) and as far as I could tell they are identical. The only difference I saw was that instead of an oil can icon, the 80# version had the word "OIL" in that spot.

Actually, I never even noticed that detail until a few minutes ago - while I was doing the comparison. If you see something that I am missing, please let me know.

TKS,
Jerry
 

hatzie

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The 80PSI sender is 14040816... Standard produces an aftermarket version.

The F-bodies and probably the Vettes used an 80PSI gauge.

The 80PSI truck gauge is in the C40, C50, & C60 clusters. There are a couple repop outfits that sell the 80PSI gauge.

IIRC the senders are both 0Ω-90Ω so using the 80PSI sender will just make the 0-60 gauge read an incorrect pressure... You could just re-label it in AMUs L-H just like the 80's temp gauge.:D
 

Darryl VDH

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Thanks Hatzie and Jerry! I bought a NOS 80 psi guage on ebay and found my local napa dealer had the pressure sender so all good! Look forward to getting it in the dash and having working oil pressure guage. Truck going in later today for posi and 410 gears! Should be interesting with the 700R4, hopefully not too steep a gear. Then drive it and see if need suspension work lol. With the ZZ6 I am anticipating some traction issues....
 

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